Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-06-16
English as She is Taught"

There has been deal of superficial
talk and writing of late, provoked by
Mark Twain's article in the April Cen
t,try, on "'English as She is Taught"
Some persons who have been heard
from on the subject have been thought
less enough to call Mr.. Clemens ar
ticle an arraignment of the public
schools and the public school teachers
of the country. Because Mr.. Clemens
was able to string together number of
ludicrous definitions given by children,
the inference has been drawn that the
public school system of the country is
all wrong; and to read after some of the
presuming censors who have taken Mr..
Clemens's citations for their text, one
might be led to suppose that genera
ton of Ounces was being run through
the public school mould. Now, all
that has in fact been established by
Mr.. Clemens-if indeed he has furnish
ed data enough for any generalization
about the matter-is that there are
some dull pupils in the public schools;
and the additional fact, spossibly, that
children are often asked questions
which are beyond their age, and there
fore that the fool was the questioner
and not the child. The Cincinnati
Commercial Gazette, in giving list of
mistakes by school children quite as
ludicrous as those cited by Mark Twain,
very sensibly comments:
"Who is responsible for the dull and
simple child but the authors of its be-
ing? The pupils that are unevenly
yoked cannot keep pace together, and
by them many of the mistakes are
made. Then there are the children
that run to special pursuits who are no
more responsible for their failings in
certain branches than they are to be
commended for their brightness in
others. A child may be color blind
and yet possessed of the keenest vision.
-Abnormally developed minds are not
amendable to training in all direction u
1t is not necessary, in speaking of the
public schools, to say that they are
above criticism. They are getting
plenty of that from men competent to
speak, men in and out of public educa-
tional work. The public schools are
open to criticism just as other latterday
institutions--the churches, government,
the courts, in short, humanity in gen.
eral. But it is we'll to be consequential
and logical in these indictments. TO
say that the definitions of dull pupils
are a sample of the work of the public
schools, is Just about as good logic as to
say that the weak-bodied and weak
minded little ones born into the world
are fair specimens of the kind of child
rem the human family is able to pro-
duce in this day of the world. The
pity is that all the children who go to
the public schools must be put through
the same mold; but there will never
come time when every child in the
world can have his own tutor, and as
long as there is gregarious education,
there will be constant exhibitions of
glaring inequalities of capacity and at
tainment. If the public school course
of study is a Procrustean bed, as some
would say, the fact that a child falls
short of fitting it must not necessarily
be laid to the fault of the bed. If there
be such a thing as making it flexible,
so much the better. And fthe carpers
who complain because there are stupids,
will show how the public schools can
develop the dormant possibilities of
backward students, without compell-
ing the bright ones to come down to
the dead level of the dull, they will
have accomplished something for the
race, and that is more than their illogi-
cal criticisms will ever do.